Something Familiar

Rachel Taparjan / Romania & United Kingdom / 2026 / World Premiere / 90 min

Rachel Taparjan sits both in the director’s chair and in front of the camera in her debut film, which feels like it has been a lifetime in the making – and indeed it has. As a child, she was adopted from Romania to England. As an adult, she has a mission. She wants to find her biological mother and the sisters she knows she has but has never met. And then she wants to find herself.

While helping another woman find her biological mother, Rachel revisits her own family history. In her search for her missing sisters, she uncovers a shocking legacy and a self-destructive pattern of abuse and exploitation. At the same time, she meets women who have themselves had to give up their children for adoption, so they can see themselves reflected in each other. The question is whether the creative power can help her rewrite the life story she has inherited? ‘Something Familiar’ is an unusually powerful and unsparing film that courageously and compellingly tells a personal story with more than one twist along the way.